Roxby mine expansion EIS due

An environmental impact statement (EIS) will be released today for the proposed expansion of BHP Billiton's Olympic Dam mine in outback South Australia.

The planned expansion would include turning the Roxby Downs operation into an open cut mine, with a significant increase in copper and uranium production.

The SA Government will also release plans to deal with an anticipated increase in demand for housing and temporary accommodation, as well as for overall growth in the area.

A re-zoning will be proposed for the area around Roxby Downs, with temporary housing to be provided for 10,000 people.

There would be a new airport near Roxby Downs, on the Andamooka Road.

The Greens say they are no more confident about the benefits from the proposed Olympic Dam mine expansion after a briefing from its owners, BHP Billiton.

Greens MP Mark Parnell says he remains worried that the mine's expansion will harm the environment.

"The company is saying that some of their energy saving initiatives make this project better than it would be if they simply conducted business as usual," he said.

"Well that might be the case but it still means millions of tonnes of greenhouse gases going into the atmosphere and that's bad for the planet as well as for South Australia."

David Noonan from the Australian Conservation Foundation says he fears the EIS will include plans for overseas, rather than local, processing of mineral concentrate.

"Let them develop and process all the copper product in South Australia, there would be far more jobs in that than there is in exporting a bulk radioactive concentrate to China and let them put the effort into SA as a copper venture," he said.

"Transport of some perhaps well over one-and-a-half million tonnes of this radioactive powder is a risk, it's a hazard and it's unnecessary.

"They should be retaining all of that radioactive material on site at Olympic Dam and developing that copper product - processing copper at the mine site, adding the jobs and the value for copper here in South Australia."

EIS available for free

Hard copies of the EIS will cost $300 for the two volumes and appendices.

Democrats MP David Winderlich says the 4,000-page report should be free to encourage South Australians to read it.

BHP Billiton will donate the proceeds to charity, but Mr Winderlich says there should not be a charge in the first place.

"That is just spin - if they care so much about charity let them write a cheque to the equivalent. That would be a tiny fraction of a huge multi-billion-dollar project that is going to give them a revenue stream for 100 years," he said.

"It is absolutely essential that as many South Australians as possible who want to have an input into this process get the chance to do that.

"BHP Billiton are clearly trying to minimise scrutiny of this report."

Richard Yeeles from BHP Billiton says there is no need to pay for a hard copy of the EIS because the electronic version can be downloaded from the internet or is available free of charge on DVD.

Mr Yeeles says the EIS is the result of years of consultation.

"We've had a dedicated team of 20 full-time on it and they've been drawing on the expertise of about 300 people in different areas," he said.

"We've undertaken a lot of consultation in advance of publishing this EIS and we're also making it very widely available on DVD and by different means so that everyone who's interested in it can get access to it."